


Empty Skies

by Verasteine



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Really, what he's left with in the end is a leg with a mind of its own, and it doesn't take kindly to being exploded at in a swimming pool. Or, how near-death experiences can change your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://irisbleufic.livejournal.com/profile)[**irisbleufic**](http://irisbleufic.livejournal.com/) for the beta, to [](http://kilawater.livejournal.com/profile)[**kilawater**](http://kilawater.livejournal.com/) for the support, and to [](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/profile)[**eumelia**](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/) for talking about John H. Watson and What Makes Him Tick with me. Couldn't have done this without you guys. Also, a quick apology to the people I promised this to like, two weeks ago. Soz! Enjoy.

It's pain and fear and fire and shrapnel, and then voices that were once his own, giving commands he had once given, and the words _reversal of fortune_ echo in his head like they're on a permanent loop, until they put him under, and his last thought is, _must need surgery._

He wakes to various ceilings, various voices just out of reach, fuzzy under a blanket of morphine that keeps him from really caring about what's happening. Time becomes a fragile thing, until he wakes to a clearer head and a screaming ache and a nurse who's worriedly monitoring his blood pressure.

It's the first time he really feels it, then, after, and it's the first time, after, that he feels the spike of fear travelling through his body, settling in his belly, making his limbs weak and fragile.

Later, time is still immeasurable. They give him drugs again, and it goes away.

It's with irony that he realises he could have as easily gained a drug addiction from all of this.

Instead, there's planes and different hospitals and NHS nurses alongside Army ones, and he's home and it doesn't feel like home at all.

Harry comes to visit and brings books and music and pyjamas in horrid patterns, and sits by his bedside trying to look like she cares, and not like she's stayed sober until she's seen him, and is counting the minutes until she can escape to her own vices.

Maybe he is unkind to her. They never talk about it.

Physical therapy is when the nightmare starts.

He gets up out of bed, walks down the hall, and by the time he's at the lift, his leg begins trembling, and pain starts shooting through it, and when he sees the physical therapist, he can barely stand up.

The bullet had torn through his shoulder.

They put him through the tests, the scans, all the things he would have ordered; they talk to his surgeon, they check about grafts and mix-ups and everything they can think of, and John keeps waiting for the answer to come back until the only answer they're left with is, _it's not real._

He thinks later, much later, that if he'd known less, he would have hurt less for it, too.

As a doctor, he's seen the records they compiled, the test results, the possibilities, the things they've ruled out. And he _knows_ , with screaming clarity, that they're right, when they sit him down and tell him, _it's not real. It's not really there, John._

His world shatters into pieces; his leg becomes an alien thing overnight, his mind his own traitor, and he wants to cry in frustration but he can't, because there's nothing there, in his mind, nothing that explains this, no feeling, no ache that could do this.

They recommend therapy and he goes, because he's got this leg that isn't his and a shoulder that only mildly hurts, and a tremor in his hand, and his discharge papers in the other, because the Army has no use for a doctor who's not whole.

\--

He chooses London because he likes it, and because it has speed, and adventures, and even if he won't be going on those again, he can still watch them go by.

There's a brief moment, then, that he pictures himself behind begonias, and then laughs, because he's not that absurd. Instead there's a room that's his and a gun he somehow didn't want to let go of, and when he lies awake at night in lieu of having nightmares, he wonders if he should be worried about that, and decides that he shouldn't.

In the cold light of day, he asks himself if that easy answer should be a concern in itself. He doesn't form a conclusion about that.

He doesn't tell Ella, either.

She's kind and she's experienced, and she sees through him enough that he's convinced of her worth, but she's also obviously trying to steer him to the future, and he can't see it, can't figure it out, and on bad days his leg aches for no apparent reason, and he wakes knowing that tomorrow will look the same.

He needs a life, but he can't find it. There seems to be no place for him in this city.

\--

He sees Mike again, and moments later his life becomes a rollercoaster of bafflement and getting abducted on a regular basis, and the dead bodies don't faze him, but the cavalier attitude does, and then he's running and his leg holds up, and he doesn't understand, but decides not to care.

His cane languishes in the corner of his room, and his hand trembles only when he's tired or abducted (again), and instead, he watches Sherlock like standing dangerously close to a tornado, and occasionally, he gets sucked up in it.

He wants to decide to stop doing all of this, to stop standing by and letting this take over his life, but when he tries, he sees grey walls and endless conversations about nothing, and he can't, in the end, even think about leaving, so he doesn't.

Sherlock smiles at him and says, one morning, "You decided to stay, then?"

John stares at him in bafflement, opens his mouth to ask how, closes it again. He replies, "Yes," instead, and Sherlock's smile lights up the room.

John doesn't want to think about that, either.

\--

There's a swimming pool and the smell of chlorine, and there's no way he can allow his hand to shake while wrapped in semtex. He thinks he can smell gunpowder before any weapon's been fired, and when he sees the look on Sherlock's face, hears the break in Sherlock's voice, time unwinds backwards and he thinks, _how could I have been so blind?_

There's nothing to be gained from realising where Sherlock stood, in their little arrangement, and there's not enough time for John to even think about where he stands, with this knowledge gained, and he wants to shudder and sit down to think about it, but he can't, because a madman and a tornado are having a conversation, and he's merely a prop in it.

So he tries to save what he can. He has to, it's what he's here for, what he signed up to, and just because he's too defective for the Army doesn't mean he can't save the most brilliant, beautiful mind on the planet.

When he realises that that's what he can do, that split second before he times his plan, in the space of the breath before he acts, he thinks, _should have worried about that gun._

Then his arm is around Moriarty's neck and he's settling for his own death in exchange for Sherlock's, and he doesn't wonder, at all, about sacrifice and love and _why_.

A heartbeat later, he knows he's lost, lost the round, lost the game, lost this game, and sacrifice and love and why are startlingly clear as he thinks a second time, _how could I have been so blind?_

There are questions unanswered and things to be negotiated, and he isn't at all sure he isn't having a sexual identity crisis while wrapped in a bomb and threatened with a gun, but there you have it. Life is never easy.

Then there's a pause and it seems over and he wants nothing so badly than to be alone and think about how it feels to have Sherlock rip the coat from his shoulders, and he wants to bury himself until he can figure this out, this pulsing feeling of complete and utter bewilderment, but instead, he takes one step and the leg, it decides it's time for revenge, and like the good little alien thing it is, it gives out with a truly spectacular stab of pain, and John staggers to the ground and gasps for breath.

\--

But it doesn't end there.

Foolish of either of them to think the torture would be over; a false sense of security, John thinks, and laughs bitterly to himself and the space of the heartbeat where Sherlock asks for his trust and John gives it, unreservedly, is taken up with the thought, _they were right. They were all right. And now it's over._

The bomb goes off and John can't move fast enough, but something slams into him, moves him backwards, and something comes down on them, the walls caving in, the sound deafening, and then it's still and everything hurts, his shoulder, his leg, his whole body, and he can't hear and he remembers vaguely that there was a bomb, that he was wrapped in semtex, and then the world goes still.

\--

He wakes to hospital ceilings and voices that were once his own, shadows of command he once possessed, and he wants to speak but he can't, and he's panicking as if he's being pulled underwater, and then a clear voice says, "John. Stop," and he knows that voice, knows that command, and stops struggling and lets himself be carried off.

When he next wakes, there's the fuzz of morphine and things just beyond his reach, and he knows there are things he should be asking, should be saying, and he can't find them, and then there's Harry, and he thinks, _did she bring crossword puzzles again? I don't like crossword puzzles_ , and has a vague recollection that someone else might.

Harry has tears in her eyes and sits quietly in the chair, and he wonders why she doesn't look like she has somewhere to be, and maybe he really is unkind.

He says her name, and she sits up, takes his hand in her own, says, "John," and chokes.

Someone else choked on his name, and it rushes back, everything, from beginning to end, and he tries to say Sherlock's name but it won't come, and Harry's eyes widen and she's calling for help and then there's people and words and things he should understand, and then nothing.

\--

The next time he wakes, there's the sound of voices pulling him to consciousness, and he lies still with his eyes closed for a while, and enjoys just hearing them.

"...leave him..."

"...refuse to be... not like you... oh, go away..."

"...childish behaviour, Sherlock, honestly, what would Mummy say?"

And suddenly John is wide awake and aware and opening his mouth and wheezing out Sherlock's name between dry lips and through a parched throat, and when he opens his eyes, Sherlock is right there, hand on his arm, burning warm through the sheets, and eyes of steel that soften even as he says, "Easy, John."

He takes the command and rests, accepts a straw and sucks on it, swallows the water painfully and then just breathes in and out, until it feels like he might stay awake even if he attempts a conversation.

"Sherlock," he says again.

Sherlock stands there, hovering over his bed, and John doesn't know what to say because he _remembers_ , and even in his enfeebled state this is spectacularly awkward and something that mustn't sit so close to the tip of his tongue.

"Get some rest," Sherlock says, calm, together, and John realises he's wearing a suit and not at all looking like a building fell on them both, and he wants to ask but he doesn't know how. He worries about what will come out when he tries, and then doesn't speak at all.

\--

Sherlock reads to him, and he only finds this out because he wakes, drowsily, to the sound of Sherlock's voice reciting Agatha Christie.

Sherlock looks over the top of the book and says, "Good morning, John," as if this is the most conventional thing one does for a laid-up flatmate, and John thinks he can think of worse.

"Sherlock," he says, and tries to sit up this time. A spectacularly awful pain shoots through his right leg, and he has to close his eyes against the rush of everything that follows in its wake. He manages to struggle up only a little, and Sherlock hovers as if he's on the cusp of getting up to help.

Alien limbs notwithstanding, his body aches and he tries to remember what happened, and still comes up blank. "You pushed me into the stall," he manages to deduce, and Sherlock's mouth curves at a corner, but he doesn't smile.

"Yes," he confirms, and his tone is precisely and carefully level. "In a vain attempt to shield the both of us from some of the blast, which was successful up to a point."

John takes him in, dressed immaculately as always, but dark circles under his eyes and his hair dull and disarranged where it otherwise shines and sits in a reasonable facsimile around his skull. No discernible injuries, though. "What happened to you?" he asks.

"I was successful up to a point," Sherlock repeats.

John frowns.

"The side of the stall protected me; I was standing up."

John remembers the blast, and thinks, _you must have some spectacular bruises under that suit._ "I was sitting down," he deduces.

"You took a fair deal of the blast, although the doctors estimate," Sherlock pauses, the book lowering unthinkingly into his lap, "that your posture, the fact that you were curled up, aided in shielding you."

John nods, carefully. "How bad is the damage?"

He doesn't know why he asks Sherlock and doesn't wait for a doctor to tell him, but it doesn't matter. "Bruised ribs," Sherlock says, "bit of a concussion. You had some internal bleeding from shrapnel. They've operated to repair it."

Well, that explains the general feeling like he's been run over.

"John," Sherlock says, carefully, and he waits till John meets his eyes. "I... I apologise for putting you at risk. It was something I should have accounted for, I--"

John lifts his hand under the blankets and struggles it out from under them, halfway extending it before he remembers they don't do this.

Sherlock looks at it, lifting his own hand away from the book, and then seems to come to the same conclusion. He drops his hand and John follows his example, and he looks at Sherlock's eyes, takes in his pained expression, hidden carefully in the lines around his eyes and the line of his lips, and wants, suddenly, just simply wants in a way he hasn't felt in years.

He looks away, unable to understand or hide or do anything other than give himself away without providing answers.

He hears Sherlock pick up the book, hears the rustling of pages, and then Sherlock clears his throat before continuing the story, picking up mid sentence as if John's been listening to him read all morning.

\--

The ceilings at Baker Street are cracked and unspectacular, but they signal home in a way John hasn't felt before, and Mrs. Hudson worries at his blankets and feeds him endless cups of tea.

He doesn't object, not with the sound of glass clinking in the kitchen and the occasional hiss of chemicals reacting. He isn't quite sure what Sherlock is doing in there, the conscious or subconscious purpose of his actions, but he knows he's happier getting his tea from Mrs. Hudson's spotless kitchen.

She worries, too, and it's in the things she doesn't say, in the lines around her eyes, like Sherlock, and in the way she sometimes pauses, mid sentence, as if how she'd been planning her words to end were best not said aloud.

There are no more words on the tip of John's tongue, swallowed down along with the fear of his leg, pushed away every time he leans on the cane that sits by the side of the sofa, now.

Mrs. Hudson ensures he has the remote for the television before setting the cup of tea by his side, and he thanks her while keeping half an eye on the news, and he almost misses the sound of the kitchen door opening a mere second after she's closed the living room door.

There are hissed voices and he can't make out what they're saying, but he suspects that she's berating Sherlock for his lack of attention, and sighs. He doesn't want to have feelings about that, doesn't want to think what it means. One of the reasons they get along so well is that John is much better than most at leaving Sherlock be and living around that, and this train of thought is taking him places he doesn't want to be.

It's not like he's never been with a man before. But it _is_ like that, he knows, it's about the things that spelled love and affection to him once, and about desire and the ability to make do, and about all the things that weren't supposed to happen, least of all to him.

It's about the pain in his leg, throbbing gently in the background in tune with the news, and about all the things that that makes John, all the things it says about him that he doesn't want spoken out loud. All the things that Sherlock can hear, because Sherlock knows John better than John knows himself, and doesn't know him at all.

Sherlock surfaces, fifteen minutes later, and opens the sliding door, closing it with equal precision behind himself. He clears his throat and John has to look at him, is drawn inexorably to Sherlock's eyes, his careful mouth, to the one curl on his forehead that is springing the other way today, and how his fingers feel restless around the cup of tea, aching to know that lock of hair.

It's getting ridiculous and dangerous and a few choice words besides, and he doesn't want to leave but he's not sure he can stay, and Sherlock looks at him, lips pressed together, looking decidedly unhappy.

John licks his lips and tries to find words to say, anything mundane, anything that'll break the ridiculousness of the two of them, of the living around each other that worked perfectly fine until John and his alien leg decided to have two epiphanies of their own.

He hates that leg, he really does, but he can't blame it for the bizarre workings of the rest of him.

"Are you..." he starts, and then realises he has no way to finish that sentence.

Sherlock nods. "Yes."

This is taking a turn from the ridiculous into the bizarre. "I don't..." John tries, and fails to find a way to explain, _this isn't an actual conversation._

"I know," Sherlock replies.

John swings his legs over the edge of the sofa and ignores both the phantom stab and the very real strains across his chest. "Sherlock--" he starts.

"We don't have to talk about it now, John," Sherlock says. "I was waiting until you were better."

"Oh," says John, and stares. "Sherlock..."

"Are you in need of anything?" Sherlock asks, and he's looking at John but his eyes are sliding upwards till they focus on the wall behind John, and he shuffles his feet, minutely.

"No," John replies, then suddenly feels a wave of pity for his flatmate, and adds, "but in an hour or so, dinner wouldn't be amiss."

Sherlock looks at him, properly this time, and his eyes light up a little. "I will see to it," he says, and it sounds like a promise.

\--

The nightmares that he was expecting don't happen, and instead it's Afghanistan again, and he's dying, he's being torn apart, and as he lies on the ground he sees a young soldier bleed out and thinks, _I could save him if I could move._

The helplessness follows him into waking, and he sits up, his real injuries twingeing less and his leg clamouring for attention in compensation.

For a moment, he sits there and hates everything. Then he feels an acceptance settle in and just lets it be, leg and all.

The gun used to be in the top drawer of his nightstand, and he looks at it, now, and misses it.

It occurs to him that it's not healthy to sit here in the dark and keep thinking along these lines, but when he thinks about waking Sherlock up, he also knows he can't.

Torn in two; a leg, a shoulder; a love, a hate; the real, and the phantom.

A gun, and a heart.

He's steadfast in his adversity, all right.

\--

Sherlock narrows his eyes when he comes in the next morning, stops right by the door and takes John in, and John turns away in sheer irritation.

 _I don't need to know what you're seeing._

Sherlock doesn't speak, just wanders into the kitchen, again carefully closing the panel door behind himself.

For a moment, John hates him with all his being.

\--

Sherlock paces and gestures and is restless until John is dying to throw him out of the flat. "Didn't your mother ever tell you to go and run it off?"

Sherlock turns and stares at him in complete surprise, _like he forgot my presence_ , and makes a helpless, frustrated sound.

It propels John from irritated and angry into a whole different world of understanding and compassion, and then something sneaks in in the wake of that that leaves him confused and makes his leg twinge with evil glee.

He smacks it with the cane to show it what real pain feels like, and Sherlock starts.

"To answer your question," he says, voice calm, eyes tightening in curiosity, like John is under his microscope, "no, she did not. I had a penchant as a child for not returning."

The image of a young Sherlock running until he's lost, or running until the trail of his curiosity has taken him beyond his boundaries of knowledge, puts a smile on John's face. There's a stab, too, underneath his chest, of something bigger and more than that, and just for a single second, he sees an image of a future and stories and can't tell if it's desire or projection.

"Sherlock," he says, and before he's finished saying the name, his nerve falters.

Sherlock is looking at him, still, eyes taking him in unblinkingly, _deducing_ , and John looks away, out the window, anywhere where Sherlock can't see, because he doesn't know, really, what truth is, any more.

"I'm going to see Lestrade," Sherlock says, with an odd lilt to his voice, and it's long after the front door's slammed shut, that John deduces it as hurt.

\--

Sherlock doesn't come home for two days, but he texts occasionally, as if these signs of life should reassure John. When he does return, John hears Mrs. Hudson confront him in the hallway.

"...it's not decent. That young man..."

Sherlock's response is irritated, hissed and angry, hurtful in the way only a wounded genius can be, and John wants to be angry for being abandoned, but he can't be, because he's more curious about what put that tone in Sherlock's voice than he is anything else.

If he ever thought he was to escape this, escape the epiphany and the things it makes him, the words that don't fit in his mouth, he thought it in vain. He struggles up from the sofa, his body not aching as much as it did before, and his leg refusing to take his weight in its own malevolent counterpoint.

John makes a grab for the cane and takes barely a step away from the sofa when the door opens to admit Sherlock, coat flying out behind him, hair windblown and cheeks red from the scouring wind. He sees John, stops mid-whirl, and narrows his eyes in a decided glare at the cane before looking at John's face and saying, "Hello, John."

"Sherlock," John replies, acknowledging him with as steady a voice as he can manage. He doesn't want to stare, he shouldn't stare, but he's drawn inexorably to what he sees before him, Sherlock in mid motion, mid action, all contrasts and lengths and beauty, and there's a word he shouldn't know, shouldn't hold in his vocabulary.

But he does; and in this moment, there's nothing more than his desire to take Sherlock to bed, nothing more than a single, narrow focus that only permits the one knowledge he needs to have.

"Sherlock," he says, and has to clear his throat because knowledge and epiphany don't create courage, and John has been afraid before, but not like this, not often.

Sherlock stops, looks at him, and says, "Yes, John. One moment."

Bewildered, John waits, as Sherlock takes off his coat and hangs in on the back of the door, over John's, which John doesn't remember putting there. He turns back to John and pauses a delicate moment, then says, "Sit, John. Please."

He doesn't want to sit down because he wants to face this standing up, the confrontation requiring... what, exactly? He's not even sure any more what he'll say or whether he can ever say anything again, and Sherlock is looking him with lines between his eyes, and John says, "I..." and his mouth goes dry.

"Yes," Sherlock says again, then sits and steeples his fingers together. John looks at him in bafflement, but before he can speak, Sherlock adds, "I understand if you want to move out."

"What?" says John.

Sherlock presses his lips together, makes a quick gesture that John suddenly realises is irritation at having to explain, having to slow down, having to make do. "John, you have obviously been unsettled of late. And my actions... At the pool, they..." He trails off, looks down and away.

"Sherlock," John says, and then stops because words still aren't easy. "I'm not moving out. I'm not thinking about that at all."

Sherlock's abrupt look up confirms his surprise at this, and it makes John smile, a little. "Then what..."

John coughs, finally facing Sherlock squarely. "I know you said, at first, that you're married to your work, but..."

"John, I--"

There's something, when their eyes meet, something in Sherlock's that John would classify as hope, and he thought he knew, back at the pool, thought he knew in that heartbeat how things stood with Sherlock, and everything that he thought he knew before then and after suddenly make more sense than they have any right to. Sherlock stays still, in the chair, looking at him and practically holding his breath, and John feels everything flow through him, compassion, affection, desire, and knows he's got to jump in at the deep end, or they could be here forever. "Forgive me," he says, "if I'm reading this wrong, but..."

Sherlock is holding his eyes, as if he's willing him to say it, and John wonders in the space where he chooses his words, just how damaged Sherlock is inside, to keep him from speaking now.

"Come to bed with me," John says finally, because it's all he has and all he wants, and he can't change the truth any more.

"John..." says Sherlock, and he reaches out with one hand, either to confirm a vision or to chase it away, John isn't sure.

He waits, extending his left hand, and Sherlock's fingers tangle with his, and John tugs. Sherlock follows, unfolding gracefully out of the chair, and letting himself be led upstairs.

\--

It should be awkward but it isn't, even with Sherlock looking at him like he's a dream or a ghost, and it makes John smile, although he stops himself from laughing outright, and then Sherlock's fingers are tracing the lines around his eyes and running through his hair, and the spike of lust that shoots through John's belly is enough to make him tremble.

"I wasn't expecting this," he half-confesses, "when I got up this morning. Or when I moved in here."

Sherlock laughs, a short huff of breath, and John meets his eyes, unsettled a little by having to look up, but then Sherlock leans down and kisses him, and all John's thoughts get chased away.

He's done this before, with men, in the Army, where it was making do or simple attraction or both, but this is different, and everything whirls for a second while he kisses Sherlock back, and there is a strong, long arm wrapped around his waist, and he slides his hands into thick curls that snag on his fingers, and Sherlock makes a sound of protest.

They come apart at that, and John opens his mouth to apologise when Sherlock laughs again, soft and happy and so simple is that sound, John can't help but try to swallow it by kissing him again.

Sherlock pushes then, leading them in the direction of the bed, and John stumbles over his own leg, but before he can be angry at it, Sherlock has manoeuvred them both onto the mattress, and John is being pushed back into the sheets and it's hard to breathe.

Sherlock pulls back, blinks a few times, and says, "John, if there's anything you want, I..."

His words are careful, measured, like the careful and measured way he negotiates around anything he cares about, and John has to close his eyes. "Nowhere we need to go, Sherlock."

He hears Sherlock parse that, and then, "All right."

John opens his eyes, meeting Sherlock's frown and apprehension, and says, "It's all fine."

"Yes," Sherlock says, emphatically, and then his hands stray to John's shirt. His fingers are careful with the buttons, grazing over John's skin occasionally, and he can't help the groans that escape at the feeling, can't help closing his eyes and reaching for Sherlock by touch, finding buttons of his own to undo.

When he opens his eyes again, Sherlock's removing his own jacket and shirt, and John confirms what he suspected; colourful yellowing bruises down one side, and he reaches out and runs fingers over the skin. Sherlock shudders under his touch, leaning his head back, until he takes John's hand and stops him.

"Not good?" John asks, keeping his tone light, and sits up to remove his own shirt, starting on his belt when he's done.

Sherlock shakes his head, and when he looks up through his hair, John sees miles of pain in there and no ways to fix that. Sherlock kisses him to make him forget, and John's focus goes elsewhere, warm skin against his own, desire taking over every last fibre of his body.

\--

Sherlock comes to rest with one arm diagonally over John's body and his head on John's left shoulder, after briefly pressing a kiss to the skin there, to the scar, and then he simply settles there, as if he's always belonged and it is his right.

John stares at the ceiling, trying to catch his breath and trying to adjust to the changes in his life in too short a space of time, and Sherlock says, softly, "He made me realise I needed you."

It's a confession of magnificent proportions, and John runs a hand up Sherlock's back, winds his fingers in the curls at the top of Sherlock's neck, and Sherlock shifts a little under his touch.

"You have a heart," John says.

"Yes," Sherlock confirms, and then, "I could love you, John, if I permitted myself. I had forgotten, that love is like that."

"Like what?"

"It snuck up on me. I'd simply not remembered to guard myself, and there you were. Everyone else leaves, and you were there and you didn't leave, and then I could not, did not want to have you go."

"I don't know if I love you," John replies. "I've never..."

"I know," Sherlock says, and flicks his eyes up, lifting his head only as far as he has to to meet John's eyes. "I have time."

John looks at the ceiling. "Sherlock..."

"It doesn't have to be easy, John. You should know me well enough to know that I don't prefer the easy option."

John thinks briefly, quirkily, of Sherlock's penchant for what is nearest to hand, and laughs. "Not always, no."

"This is what it is, and where it'll take us."

"Yes," John says. _Is it that simple_ , he wonders, because everything with Sherlock has always seemed so enormous.

Sherlock's lips press against his skin again, and he shivers, feeling Sherlock's hair brush against his shoulder. "I don't have... any expectations."

John wants to wrap up that careful, precise hurt he can hear and throttle it, but instead he replies, "Me, neither. Nowhere we need to go."

"Yes, John," Sherlock agrees, and the words leave trails of air over John's bare skin. Then, after a moment, "Nowhere but here." He settles his head over John's scar again, and John closes his eyes.

\--  
 _finis._


End file.
